To follow up on my point about being home: because we had decided that we were going to be the primary caregivers of our children, with no reliance on a day care center and minimal reliance on family members, we had to manage our work schedules around each other. We tried very hard to make sure that one of us was with our oldest all the time, if not both of us. This did not always translate into having family dinners together.
This past academic year was particularly rough, because I’d be out all day Monday, then out most of the afternoon and early evening Tuesday, my wife would be out after an early dinner Wednesday, I’d be gone most of the day Thursday, and that would leave us with the weekend for dinners. Since I’ve finished the spring term, we’ve had most of our dinners as a family, and it’s been…well, mostly good, except these two girls do like to get up out of their chairs and play before they have finished the meal.
It’s also great what happens when you turn the tv set off. Tonight after dinner, our oldest played with all the toys she and her sister took out of about four or five bins in the basement, while the little one got a bath. After about twenty or thirty minutes, it was Big Sister’s time to bathe (while the little one did not play with the toys again, she also did not have to clean up the mess she had contributed to).
After baths, we played Pictionary Jr. We did not worry about winning and losing – and with a three-year-old direction and rules are pretty much irrelevant – so we just drew pictures and guessed words. My oldest wrote the clue word on one side of her paper, and the picture on the other. My wife hit upon the idea to make it into a book, so she stapled the pages together after the game was over, and my oldest was trying to teach her baby sister to read…
Afterwards we hung out in the living room – my oldest on the couch, the little one in the stroller – making up new words to the “five little monkeys sitting on a bed” song. It was a fun evening and I think I fell asleep before they did!
Not every Friday is like this, and usually we pick up our nephew after school and he dines with us. But when it does happen it’s great.
Next June I’ll be working three nights a week and my wife will work a fourth. But Friday still will be ours. And you can never have too many pencils!